When a teenage Leonora Carrington announced to her father, a wealthy industrialist in the north of England, that she wanted to study art, he proposed that she breed fox terriers instead. Carrington, who maintained a lifelong aversion to conformity, fortunately did not follow her papa’s advice. At the age of 15, in 1932, she traveled to Florence, where she received her first formal training in painting, at Mrs. Penrose’s Academy of Art—a reputable boarding school whose alumni included the dancer Gloria Braggiotti Etting and the art historian Sir Harold Acton.
Carrington’s discovery of Renaissance art during those early years in Florence, and its lasting impact on her career, is the subject of “Leonora Carrington,” the first solo exhibition of her work to be held in Italy. Opening next Saturday at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, the show consists of 65 paintings and drawings, plus photographs, notebooks, and books from Carrington’s personal library.
